


Cataphylls

by beewinged



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Nature, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beewinged/pseuds/beewinged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Five years have passed, and they are both taller and stronger. Isaza still looks like a patch of grass that decided to stand up straight and walk on two legs, still examines new faces with the calculating gaze of a crow.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>The shifting of the Light Vein has pulled their paths into conjunction, and it will push them just as quickly in opposite directions.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cataphylls

Ginko doesn’t remember much about those earliest days, when he first walked out of darkness. They are a blur of restlessness and fear, only coming into focus when a boy, older and taller and somewhat wild, strides up to him and exclaims, “So the rumor was true.”

Isaza says, “Come with me.”

Isaza says, “It’s not just you-- we can see them, too. All of us.”

 

 

The Watari cannot answer all of his questions, but they do their best to help him understand. “ _Mushi_ ,” he repeats, and does not feel afraid.

In the end, the warmth of their company teaches a sharp lesson, because one question has an answer that never changes.

“Can I stay?”

“No. We are sorry.”

It seems that the same strange creatures which have brought the Watari together-- a floating village, a patchwork family-- crowd him so closely that there is no room for human companionship. The Watari tend a river of life, and his presence stirs life into chaos.

They find him a place with a wandering master. There isn’t time to be choosy, they can’t even wait until the stranger arrives, and leave him before dawn on the mountainside. The Mushishi will be the first of many; kinder than the worst, but ignorant. They travel together for little more than a month before ignorance turns to fear.

“ _Think_ ,” his former keeper says to the next, “ _of the possibilities. If you are careful-- of course, always careful. You will never go hungry._ "

After that, he is passed from hand to hand like a talisman. If he hadn’t learned it before, drifting from village to village with ghosts in his wake, he quickly understands that _we must eat_ is the only law of life.

 

 

When he sees Isaza again, Ginko has a lifetime of memories to replace those that were lost.

“You’re alive,” Isaza greets him.

“So are you,” he replies.

Five years have passed, and they are both taller and stronger. Isaza still looks like a patch of grass that decided to stand up straight and walk on two legs, still examines new faces with the calculating gaze of a crow.

The shifting of the Light Vein has pulled their paths into conjunction, and it will push them just as quickly in opposite directions.

 

 

“This is a good place,” Isaza says, brown hands knitting snares in the grass, dipping traps into still pools. He guts loach like a fisherman and peels back hides like a hunter. They share stories of their travels, sidestepping the holes where truths have been cut out.

“You’re not with-- what was his name?” Isaza wipes blood from his hands with a clump of grass.

“Tanaka-sensei. No.”

“Is he still alive?”

“I don’t know.”

Isaza cocks his head at him, then shrugs. They carry the day’s catch back to the others and sit together while they eat.

Only then does Isaza say, “Not all Mushishi are good.”

Ginko glances at him, but doesn’t reply.

“Their work is different than ours.”

Ginko nods. Staring into the firelight has made the shadows between the trees seem darker. The light moves over dead leaves and over the faces of the Watari; men and women, young and old. Though none of them are related by blood, their faces reflect a strange sameness, as if they are contemplating a shared secret.

“But I think,” Isaza continues, “you’ll be a good one.”

 

 

The afternoon before the Watari depart, Ginko and Isaza walk along the riverbank, turning over stones and examining what they find.

“What’s this one-- is it eating the smaller ones?” Isaza points at a mushi like a tiny, lavender zarigani.

“No. It can’t really use those limbs at all.” Ginko pokes at it, and it drips into his palm. “But it looks attractive to fish and birds, so they eat it and carry it away inside their bodies, where it feeds on the bacteria in their gut. By the time the animal excretes it, it has hardened into what looks like a seed.”

“And gets eaten again?”

“Right. No one really knows how many forms it takes, before the end of its life.”

They both stare as it glistens, motionless, in Ginko’s hand. Then Ginko dips his hand in the river, and it washes away.

 

 

“We’ll probably leave tomorrow,” Isaza says.

Ginko nods.

“You should find an _Uromori_ , Ginko. We might need you.”

Sweat has made Isaza’s hair strawlike and clingy, and he pushes it out of his eyes. Ginko is reminded of a bear he once encountered, raising its dark, dripping head from a river. The bear’s eyes were brown, fading into pupils like a bottomless well-- so deep that, if you stared too long, you might forget everything but hunger and tiredness and the pleasantness of sunlight. They reflected no malice, no pride, no compassion; only a pulse, an echo of the mountain’s heart.

“Yes,” Ginko promises. “I will.”


End file.
